CBC News 43 Tanglung street party at Bandar Puteri

Catholic High School Boys performing the drums

The white tents along the street outside the shop houses facing Puteri Mart had been set up the day before for the party. And the weekend before, some CBC Puchong folks had put up the little lanterns we’d used every year for the last few years for our mooncake celebrations. (The Mid-Autumn festival involves both the mooncake and lantern/tanglung.) This year saw more `outside’ participation in terms of stalls set up – by commercial enterprises such as IOI Properties, Marriott Putrajaya and Lite-Yo, among others. The main sponsor of the event was IOI Properties; other sponsors include The Sun newspapers, Moves & Shakes and Touch Community Services (comprising mainly CBC Puchong members).

Uncle Edward Tan, one of the MCs for the event, developed a sore throat prior to the day. Although he was not healed, my husband Ian, another MC, told Uncle Edward that it should be okay if he held the mike close to his mouth. In the end, he had no problems speaking throughout the whole event. Praise God!

The street party offered participants prizes for various competitions: mooncake eating, limbo rock, hula hoop, children’s painting, lantern-making, quiz, ping pong and football.

The temporary stage was enlivened with music recitals by students of BumbleBee Music & Arts Center, dances by BumbleBee and Xing School’s students as well as Game Flier employees, a Chinese yo-yo demonstration, a cheerleading performance by Lite-Yo’s team, a mother and daughter who sang separately in dazzling outfits, with the finale of karaoke by senior citizens. Just off the stage and as dusk fell, came the thundering of Chinese drums to lend atmosphere to the event. The crowd seemed to enjoy these performances very much as they hung around the stage area for the greater part of the evening’s festivities when the show was on.

The Hula-Hoop

The white tents proffered various interesting to-do’s – some were food and drink stalls selling rojak, keropok, nasi lemak, fried chicken, air bandung, etc.; an SG member sold little battery-powered radio-controlled helicopters; one tent housed IOI Properties’ Wheel of Fortune, which proved very popular with the crowd as there was a queue pretty much all the time; the Marriott Putrajaya tent fascinated folks with a demonstration of how to make ping pei (snow skin) mooncake with tasting allowed; game stalls were also available, one of which lets mere mortals pretend to be sharp shooters with a laser gun in the hopes of securing some sponsored prizes; and free health screening was carried out for blood sugar and cholesterol levels, blood pressure reading as well as a hearing test, among others. IOI Properties hired a clown to amuse the children with fanciful balloon animals and other creations. After the onstage cheerleading performance by the Lite-Yo team, Lite-Yo cups of yogurt were given out free to the crowd for sampling.

Cheerleaders

CBC Puchong raised RM3,000 for the House of Joy Children’s and Old Folks’ Homes from its fund-raising activities for the evening. The House of Joy Girl’s Home was given a place to sell its home-made trinkets and baubles at a shared tent.

One enterprising retired gentleman sold pop-up greeting cards which opened up into attractive 3-D constructions. His stall was just next to the BumbleBee Music & Arts Center’s information counter where I was stationed for the event. At one point, this Chinese gentlemen wanted to close his stall and walk around to enjoy the rest of the street party but as he was packing up his goods, he had a surge of customer interest in his products and was delayed from his planned R&R. Fortunately for him, he did manage to take a break finally to savor the night’s offerings before it all came to an end.

And end it finally did – half an hour past the scheduled time of 10pm. Ian and I left for home thinking that the IOI Properties employees would clean up the horrible mess of litter all over the party’s tarred street. We got home only for Ian to realize he had left his digital camera’s battery still charging at the party venue and so he had to drive back there. Then Ian called home to say that CBC Puchong’s manpower was expected to clean up! That was about 10.45pm and I thought to myself that Ian would only be home around midnight surely, remembering as I did how full of litter the place had been when we left. But God is good and Ian came home at 11.15pm – to my utter amazement. It took only half an hour to clean up. Praise the Lord!

By Chew Juliane
Pictures by Ian Chai
Juliane and Ian worship in CBC Puchong